5 ms·

It’s not really that this virus is strange, it’s more that we’ve never really dug into the subtler effects of a lot of viruses that humans suffer infections fro

It’s not really that this virus is strange, it’s more that we’ve never really dug into the subtler effects of a lot of viruses that humans suffer infections from. Herpes is another virus that when’re just now finding far removed links to, alzheimer's disease being one.

weaksauce 6y ago
Why haven't we dug into them more deeply?
- exmadscientist 6y ago
  Because research prioritization and funding is comically, hilariously, pathetically, tragically broken? The research proposals which get funded are never the best ones given our current knowledge, much less the right ones for advancing our current knowledge. (Source: see username. I've seen inside a few of the US academic funding sausage factories, and it's not pretty.)
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I set out to read most if not all of the annual reports of small public companies, an awful lot of which are drug/biotech startups, and the odd thing I've noticed is that many of them, if not a majority, seem to be focusing on rare diseases, and not only that, but there's more overlap than you'd think (you'd think there would be a huge number of different rare diseases by definition). I have a vague sense of the rationalizations of that, there's less competition, more chance of discovering something revolutionary, but... I couldn't help thinking, where are the companies trying to change the world with moonshots that address common diseases? My kneejerk reaction is that incentives must be screwed up at some level of regulation.
Gibbon1 6y ago
My take is because we developed vaccines for most seriously bad human infectious diseases we've just forgotten how deviously sneaky they can be. If you read up on measles, mumps, polio, typhus, etc and look at the various complications, you'll realize there is nothing that special about covid19.
- whorishooze 6y ago
  I was just reading about how Measles basically wipes out your acquired immune system's memory of everything its fought before and developed a resistance to, and more or less sets you back at square one. "Immune Amnesia" as its called sis pretty terrifying, as is the fact that Measles should absolutely be nowhere near first world countries right now, yet there's outbreaks in some of the richest zip codes in USA
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Yeah does that. Also in a small number of patients causes a fatal neurological syndrome months to years after infection. Est 1:2500 to 1:10000 no one really knows. Lot of these diseases have far milder courses in children than adults. Polio I think is also often asymptomatic. Mumps can cause sterility. Even consider after the Spanish Flu in 1918 there was a 10 year long epidemic of sleeping sickness. That might, might not be related. Also now I'm in my 50's I have half a dozen friends who used to be healthy and vibrant who now appear to have some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome. Old age? Post viral syndrome? No idea but makes me nervous. And there are the two older people I knew who had lingering effects from polio who both died in middle age.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Look into Filovirus or Retrovirus. Those make Corona look like the sniffles.

weaksauce 6y ago

Why haven't we dug into them more deeply?

exmadscientist 6y ago
Because research prioritization and funding is comically, hilariously, pathetically, tragically broken? The research proposals which get funded are never the best ones given our current knowledge, much less the right ones for advancing our current knowledge. (Source: see username. I've seen inside a few of the US academic funding sausage factories, and it's not pretty.)
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I set out to read most if not all of the annual reports of small public companies, an awful lot of which are drug/biotech startups, and the odd thing I've noticed is that many of them, if not a majority, seem to be focusing on rare diseases, and not only that, but there's more overlap than you'd think (you'd think there would be a huge number of different rare diseases by definition). I have a vague sense of the rationalizations of that, there's less competition, more chance of discovering something revolutionary, but... I couldn't help thinking, where are the companies trying to change the world with moonshots that address common diseases? My kneejerk reaction is that incentives must be screwed up at some level of regulation.

Gibbon1 6y ago

My take is because we developed vaccines for most seriously bad human infectious diseases we've just forgotten how deviously sneaky they can be. If you read up on measles, mumps, polio, typhus, etc and look at the various complications, you'll realize there is nothing that special about covid19.

whorishooze 6y ago
I was just reading about how Measles basically wipes out your acquired immune system's memory of everything its fought before and developed a resistance to, and more or less sets you back at square one. "Immune Amnesia" as its called sis pretty terrifying, as is the fact that Measles should absolutely be nowhere near first world countries right now, yet there's outbreaks in some of the richest zip codes in USA
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Yeah does that. Also in a small number of patients causes a fatal neurological syndrome months to years after infection. Est 1:2500 to 1:10000 no one really knows. Lot of these diseases have far milder courses in children than adults. Polio I think is also often asymptomatic. Mumps can cause sterility. Even consider after the Spanish Flu in 1918 there was a 10 year long epidemic of sleeping sickness. That might, might not be related. Also now I'm in my 50's I have half a dozen friends who used to be healthy and vibrant who now appear to have some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome. Old age? Post viral syndrome? No idea but makes me nervous. And there are the two older people I knew who had lingering effects from polio who both died in middle age.

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Look into Filovirus or Retrovirus. Those make Corona look like the sniffles.